"Rise" starts tonight at 10 on NBC

I loved watching a hometown kid my D did 4 shows with as one of the semi-featured characters… but the show was AWFUL, and virtually unbelievable. As mentioned earlier in the thread - the ACTUAL story of this director and theater program would have been WAY more inspirational

^ I agree. The book is drama high and i hope a film or show will one day do them justice just by telling the truth.

I watched the whole season and berated myself after each episode for continuing to watch. Most of the teenagers were very talented, but the adult characters were hard to watch. I wanted to strangle Lou just about every episode. What a horrible character. Wish there were way more snippets of Spring Awakening numbers. They focused on the most controversial songs/scenes. Glad that others felt equally disappointed in this show…a wasted opportunity for young theatre actors. Sorry for the rant…just had to get it out!!!:slight_smile:

@Bogeyw agree - Lou was supposed to be the center of the show, but he was just not a nice guy much of the time. Hard to have sympathy with him much of the time, even though he did good by the “adopted” son and getting his real son into rehab. That said, it was frustrating that they went out on a cliffhanger. And, Lilette’s mom and the pregnant girl’s dad and Simon’s dad… generally poorly done. The girl from Moana that played Lilette is a wonderful singer and a gorgeous young woman, but I think she needs to improve her acting chops.

I was SOO excited when I heard about this show, and even though it was disappointing, I still watched it. I hope its failure will not keep other shows about musical theatre off the tube. For example, I would love to see a show like Mozart in the Jungle, from a MT perspective.